the stockholm mentality
by bonfires
Summary: A feisty princess, a pseudo-pyromaniac, and their sardonic middleman – there's /nothing/ wrong with this picture. Especially, of course, when abduction is involved. — Axel/Kairi/Roxas.


**DISCLAIMER |** The standard still applies, like always.

**SUMMARY | **A feisty princess, a pseudo-pyromaniac, and their sardonic middleman – there's /nothing/ wrong with this picture. Especially, of course, when abduction is involved. — Axel/Kairi/Roxas.

* * *

**the stockholm mentality**

ch. 1 —_ kidnapping the heroine 101_

* * *

Kairi's always the one left behind.

The one with the emotional baggage like a vice hold over rationality, worry threading ribbons in her hair and lingering in the spaces between. Pitifully sweet Kairi with the soft indigo eyes and inwardly drawn glances, so lost; sympathy ward and a pretty redhead, as if that wasn't enough. So tragic.

And it annoys her.

It's what they think when they spend their days around the beach, sun burnt, that perpetual stench of ocean salt and sand clinging to her, a second skin. Especially when the townspeople stare with those eyes, pressed lips and light shakes of the head (like she doesn't know it's unnatural, that it's downright weird to spend five hours a day watching an unchanging horizon).

Her father stares through her with the glassiest gaze, eyes introverted, and sometimes, glancing at him in the low light, she thinks she takes it from him. They don't talk, though. For a mayor, he's surprisingly quiet; ten years of village complaints make him humble, submissive. Like laundry left to dry, his mind bakes and he's no longer there for his little daughter, stuck in that horrible transition between child and woman.

But it's mostly the boy she can't possibly remember but still does that she waits for, day in, day out. He's the key to her anxiety; when he returns, he'll be able to explain everything.

The fact that no one else has even the faintest clue about him is just a little on the side of maddening, though.

No one wants to talk about obsessions with lucky charms and bottled letters, trademarks of the desperate and the depressing. The crazy girl with the wild barely self-contained; and she cries in her sleep, sometimes.

At least Selphie has the good grace to bite her tongue and twist her fingers around prayer knots when Kairi becomes distant. Her boys are safe.

The sea foam curdles white and froths over; Kairi sets her chin down on knobby knees and thinks like it'll save her from, well, herself. That one day, she'll stop and finally continue on with her life, currently on pause for the last year or ten.

But that was before someone rather inconvenient decided to come and block that triangle of light scoping out one side of her face, stand right where the sunburst hit land, and the clouds seem to gather.

She registers the frustration trailing one side of his face, the corners of his mouth twitching imperceptibly. ''Can I help you?'' she inquires, her eyebrows drawing together.

''Are you Kairi?'' Curtly blunt, the stranger doesn't spend any time beating around the bush. Not a resident; in the afternoon sun, he's already sweltering.

She barely hears it, because she's staring and staring and finally, it hits her.

His eyes are the same shade of blue.

She blinks, mouth opening and closing several times, trying to reconcile the sudden need to rip her heart out to steady the pulse and pull it together, or she's going to have a sunstroke without missing a beat, and wouldn't that be the most horrible thing?

He waits.

Kairi stumbles around half-formed consonants that fill her tongue, sugary-sweet cadences and a recall of summer bonfires and palm trees that stretched endlessly to the sky. Paopu fruits with their centers stained a deep orange-red at their centers, and her pulse throbs in her temple, her wrist, her heart.

You promised you'd come back to me, didn't you?

And it's enough to bring it back, almost.

''… Sora?'' Her voice catches, whisper-soft, and it breaks from expectation.

There's something terrible about the way his face darkens at the words, starkly affected, and a ripple goes through him, electrified. ''No.''

She withdraws, eyes prickling, and she considers laughing. ''Did the mayor send you? I swear, I told him I'd be back before he needed to send a search party to recover my body from the birds.''

He responds by seizing her arm and yanking her up, sharply. The shock of golden hair is brought into focus, and petulant irritation. ''You didn't answer my question.''

Kairi yanks her hand out of his grip. It's more than enough of an answer for both of them. His hand remains in the stretch of space between them a second longer before dropping to his side.

The guy (no more than a boy, she realizes) shakes his head in thinly veiled exasperation, taking a step closer, and she takes two steps back in return. His eyes rest at the space directly beyond her. ''Do you mind?''

''Huh?'' she echoes, face scrunching up in confusion.

She distinctly feels one of two things: a shift in the ground below her, and the distinctly pungent aroma of smoke resonating somewhere above her, arms below her. Kairi registers red spikes, and a pair of Chesire eyes, green ovals with light half-contained.

The whole black trench coat get-up just took the cake. The two were, from head-to-toe, in the sort of leather that got you in jail for delinquency, drugs, and being downright suspicious. She made a move to speak, to argue outright against this atrocity, but a gloved hand conveniently clamped over her mouth, and now she tasted it.

Oh, the horror.

On the other hand, the two had hit a bickering stalemate. ''We don't have an eternity to watch your train wreck, Roxas. I told you it'd be a whole lot faster to do it my way.''

Presumably, the individual named Roxas narrowed his eyes. ''This was my idea. We were supposed to go according to the plan -''

''Don't pout, blondie. You'll thank me someday.'' Cue scowl from the shorter of the two strangers. Chesire-smile guy shrugs, relinquishing some of his goodwill. ''.. I'll get you some ice cream later.''

And it seems to sate Roxas, because he relaxes, slightly. ''As much as I want, no questions asked.''

''Does the word 'diabetic' mean anything to you?''

''I'll take my chances.''

He jostles the cargo (redhead, sixteen, currently in full-blown disbelief) at him. ''You just want to bankrupt me.''

''I plead the fifth.'' Roxas raised one hand up, appraising him with an amused, if slightly irritated, smile.

''That wasn't a question!''

Kairi squirms, ripping the hand off her mouth when it's sufficiently distracted. ''As much as I adore being stuck in the middle of lover's quarrel, could you please let go of me?''

They both stare at her, and she feels the very atmosphere pull apart at the seams.

''Axel, what should we –''

''No can do, Kairi.'' Chesire-smile interrupts, cheekbones splashed with two black teardrops. ''You're coming with us. Sorry for the inconvenience.''

The redhead starts, the color draining from her face. ''How did you know my name?''

''You make it so painfully obvious, unlike Roxas here,'' A growl resonates from somewhere a few feet away, ''who's got the subtlety of a flying pig in an oasis of beatniks.''

As she realizes her situation's rapidly deteriorating from bizarre to abduction, in one swift move, she pulls her arm back as far it'll go, and releases.

Axel (Axle? Like the car part?) merely turns a couple degrees to his right, and hefts her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. ''Nice try, sweetheart. Five points for the effort. Roxas, keep count.''

Kairi pounds away at his back, knuckles tight and screeches. ''Let me go, let me go, let me go!''

Roxas rolls his eyes. ''You're making a scene.'' He reaches his out into thin air, and the wisps of inky dark murkiness shoot straight up, forcing a portal to materialize with the flex of his fingers. ''I told you, I'd be able to convince her if you just gave me more time.''

Axel promptly ignores her, re-shuffling her weight as he scratches his head. "It was physically painful to spectate alone. We both knew where it was heading.''

His voice drowned out abruptly by her shrieks as she becomes the unequivocally classic damsel-in-distress without skipping a beat.

''What is that?'' The condemnation of death, or something close, hangs clear over her head, and she screams, ''Someone, anyone, help me! I'm being kidnapped by two psychos!''

''Are you serious?'' Roxas mutters something incoherent underneath his breath, looking paler and paler by the minute, and absolves to stay calm. It fails. ''We're saving you! You think that we want to deal with –''

''Hush, XIII. You want to spill the beans so fast?'' Axel intrudes, the benevolent sneer almost condescending in the afternoon glare. ''No, Princess just needs her beauty rest.''

Kairi throws her hands up in vexation, kicking and yowling like a displaced cat. ''Is no one listening to me?''

''Axel, I swear, if you –'' Roxas stops, tight-lipped and boyish again, a panic that ruffles shivering blond hair, threatening to take hold. And he begins again, raspy and sad. ''I won't be able to forgive you.''

There's something that resembles desperation curling Axel's mouth, but in a flash, it's gone. A dead man walking, and it makes Kairi freeze, suspended in space. ''I don't need amnesty. Never needed it.''

''Uh-huh.'' Roxas sighs, settling back into himself. ''Just checking.''

Axel approaches the portal, a few centimeters away between light and dark, hefting her up and clamping his hand over Kairi's nose and mouth, this time around.

''Eughhh – h-hey! No! Where are you even grabbing? You are so not going to – heeeeeeeelp!'' She smells something pungent invading her nostrils, and her limbs thrash, searching the scene in vain for something to aid her, but of course, there's no one in sight. That part of the island is always secluded, and they wouldn't send out a search party for hours. Try not to breathe.

It reeks of antiseptic, and her head spins.

Somewhere beyond or below them, Roxas sighs. ''Was it really necessary? Even if she escaped, we'd be able to catch her. She doesn't even have a weapon.''

''You're forgetting those instruments they call nails. It'll take an eye out, if you're lucky. If not, well – it was nice knowing you. Send me a card from the other side when you get there.''

''You're completely insane.''

''You only noticed now?''

Her vision twitches back and forth from clear to hazy. Axel casually eases her to the floor with a muted thump, and Kairi begins wheezing terribly, all pitiful groans. ''Y-you're ..'' she slurs angrily, indignant despite the fact that her body's going limp, mind's turning to mush.

''I-I'm not .. even .. rich!'' It's an angry protest, and she'd be capable of glaring, if her eyelids were already closing.

Axel chuckles dryly, ''It's not money we're after, Princess.''

So, armed with that knowledge, Kairi does what any self-respecting damsel-in-distress would do; she loses consciousness.

To be honest, this was really not the way she would have chosen to die.

This is so messed up.

-  
For a second or two, neither of them says anything.

And then Roxas coughs, casually. He scuffs his shoe in the dirt, scratching his head and looking back at the mainland shining clear in the distance. He pulls at his collar. ''Aren't you going to .. pick her up?''

Axel eyes him with something like a genuine smile. ''I have something in mind. C'mon, if you thought you were gonna' free-load off of this, you've got another thing coming.''

Roxas reaches down and pulls Kairi up by stick-thin arms, cradling her, and he frowns. She's light, impossibly so. ''You really think it's going to work?''

''Nope.''

His expression falters uncertainly, becoming more untrusting by the second. ''Then why bother?''

Axel sees it, and he pauses to find words, thick, loquacious prose trilling choruses in his ears. He ignores it. ''Because it's our only shot. For better or worse.'' Axel tilts his head back to stare at the sky. ''I gotta' say, I never imagined it would be so liberating.''

But Roxas doesn't look. He doesn't want to see the nearly imperceptible tremors running through hands shaking with anxiously wound lies, the green turning acidic, red too exuberant and gaudy. Unreal expectations that dig into their bones, into chest cavities with no hearts; in a way, they both know how it'll end. It's only a matter of how long they can keep the others guessing.

Things unsaid.

I don't want you to disappear.

Roxas grimaces. ''Do you mind?'' Straining, a broken record without the emphasis, and maybe he is.

''Yes, I do.'' Axel drawls out, and drapes Kairi over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, because that's what she is, too. That and a Princess of Heart, but it's mostly a minor detail.

By that time, the portal's already closed, but when Roxas outstretches one hand to make another, Axel stops him. ''You don't know where it is, right?''

''I had a guess.'' he replies sourly.

In its stead, another portal forms. ''Your guesses usually end up being shit, kiddo'.''

''S'not my fault Luxord's so good at poker.''

''I'll have you know I lost 400 munny and one my favorite coat on the assumption that you were, in fact, a good Samaritan. How much did he pay you, again?''

Roxas simpered. ''200. Don't let the face fool you, I'm vicious.''

Axel tousles his hair until Roxas gets it in his head to swat it away. ''Adorable, I can tell. Just bum some munny from ever stranger we meet with your baby face, and we'll never run out.''

Roxas scoffs and heads into the portal without a second glance.


End file.
